>From LAWS@KL.SRI.COM Tue Dec 15 05:13:25 1987 Date: Mon 14 Dec 1987 22:24-PST From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-To: AIList@SRI.COM Us-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList V5 #283 - Smalltalk, Lisp Portability, AI Liability To: AIList@SRI.COM Status: RO AIList Digest Tuesday, 15 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 283 Today's Topics: Queries - Statistics on AI Programmers & KR References & Cognitive Science Programs, AI Tools - Smalltalk for the MAC & RACTER & LISP vs. PROLOG & Common Lisp Portability, Law - Expert System Liability, Philosophy - The Role of Biological Models in AI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Dec 87 13:30:14 GMT From: caip.rutgers.edu!anar@rutgers.edu (Anar Shah) Subject: Statistics on AI programmers requested I am looking for articles/statistics on the availability of AI programmers - the demand vs the supply. Any information on this subject will be a great help. Anar Shah ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 87 11:54:08 GMT From: mcvax!lifia!gb@uunet.UU.NET (Guilherme Bittencourt) Reply-to: mcvax!lifia!gb@uunet.UU.NET (Guilherme Bittencourt) Subject: References wanted I am very interested in recent publications concerning Knowledge Representation tutorials or surveys, and papers comparing different techniques of Knowledge Representation. If someone knows about or has published such papers, I'd be very pleased if she/he could contact me, or send me her/his papers and/or any pointer to such publications. Besides being useful for my research these papers will be included to the second version of a bibliography on Expert and Knowledge-Based Systems. The first version is just out as an internal lab. report and is available (until the requests do not oversize our supply !) Thank you for your help. Guilherme -- Guilherme BITTENCOURT +-----+ gb@lifia.imag.fr L.I.F.I.A. | <0> | 46, Avenue Felix Viallet +-----+ 38031 GRENOBLE Cedex (33) 76574668 ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 87 20:55:11 GMT From: clyde!watmath!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utai!tjhorton@rutger s.edu (Timothy J. Horton) Subject: Cognitive Science programs (once and for all) Do you have info about cognitive science programs? ie. interdisciplinary programs based on several of computersci / psychology / neurosci / linguistics / even philosophy / etc Please drop me a few lines or pointers to info. I will summarize and post. I have read of a Cognitive Science Society. Do they have a published list of programs somewhere? If so, where? >From what I understand, perhaps not accurately (please clarify): MIT: department of Brain and Cognitive Science Brown: department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science Stanford: Graduate Program in Cognitive Science Psychology (organizing dept), Linguistics, Computer Science, Philosophy UCSD: interdisciplinary PhD in Cognitive Science exists undergraduate program in Cog Sci currently offered by psychology strengths in psychology, connectionism (though fading?), neurosci, linguistics a real dept of Cognitive Science is in the works, perhaps for 88/89 UC Berkley: Cognitive Science Program focus on linguistics Michigan: defunct Program in Communications Sciences Toronto: Undergraduate Major in Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence Princeton: program of some sort? Edinburgh: department of Cognitive Science (formerly School of Epistemics) focus on linguistics Sussex: School of Cognitive Science -- Timothy J Horton (416) 979-3109 tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet) Dept of Computer Science tjhorton@ai.toronto (other Bitnet) University of Toronto, tjhorton@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400) Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!tjhorton ------------------------------ Date: 11 Dec 87 14:22:10 GMT From: sunybcs!rapaport@ames.arpa (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: Cognitive Science programs (once and for all) In article <4186@utai.UUCP> tjhorton@ai.toronto.edu (Timothy J. Horton) writes: >Do you have info about cognitive science programs? State University of New York at Buffalo has several active cognitive science programs. What follows is a slightly outdated on-line information sheet on two of them. The newest is the SUNY Buffalo Graduate Studies and Research Initiative in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, whose Steering Committee is currently planning the establishment of a Cog and Ling Sci Center and running a colloquium series. For more information, please contact me. In addition, let me know if you wish to be on my on-line mailing list for colloquium announcements. William J. Rapaport Assistant Professor of Computer Science Co-Director, Graduate Group in Cognitive Science Interim Director, GSRI in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {ames,boulder,decvax,rutgers}!sunybcs!rapaport (716) 636-3193, 3180 || [Write to the author if you need the full message. -- KIL] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 11 Dec 87 11:45 EDT From: TAM%MCOIARC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Subject: Smalltalk for the MAC In response to Robert Stanley's mention of Smalltalk for the MAC: The Smalltalk version available from APDA is a very poor implementation. I found that it frequently overwrite the whole screen when using standard graphics. Parc Place Systems has a version now for the MAC II (which I have recently ordered), for the MAC SE, and the MAC Plus. These versions are standard Smalltalk-80 (Parc Place is a division of Xerox Corp). The manual shipped with Apples Smalltalk is very bad. You must be very effient with SMalltalk-80 before using it. Smalltalk from Apple cost $75.00. Smalltalk-80 from Parc Place is $1000 for the MAC SE and Plus, and $1295.00 for the MAC II, but Parc Place offers a 90% educational discount making all the systems practically the same price. My opinion is get the real thing and buy Parc Place's Smalltalk. ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 87 01:00:41 GMT From: cbmvax!swatsun!hirai@uunet.uu.net (Eiji "A.G." Hirai) Subject: Re: Request for RACTER In article <8712041829.AA19308@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> ST502042@BROWNVM.BITNET (Michael Nosal) writes: > ... >m on the subject, if anyone knows of other 'Eliza-like' AI programs out there, >please let me know. GNU Emacs has a bery primitive Eliza-like (un-AI like) lisp program called 'doctor'. Also check out 'flames' too, which reponds to your efforts at communicating with it through flames. Very sociable. :-) > Michael Nosal (please respond to this account if possible) -a.g. hirai -- Eiji "A.G." Hirai @ Swarthmore College, Swarthmore PA 19081 | Tel. 215-543-9855 UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, cbosgd}!bpa!swatsun!hirai | "All Cretans are liars." Bitnet: vu-vlsi!swatsun!hirai@psuvax1.bitnet | -Epimenides Internet: bpa!swatsun!hirai@rutgers.edu | of Cnossus, Crete ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 87 17:56:27 GMT From: umix!umich!eecs.umich.edu!dwt@uunet.UU.NET (David West) Reply-to: umix!umich!eecs.umich.edu!dwt@uunet.UU.NET (David West) Subject: Re: Expert System references... In article <8712100816.AA09612@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> WURST@UCONNVM.BITNET writes: > > I am a graduate student in Computer Science [...] > I plan to write the system twice, > once in LISP, and once in PROLOG, and then compare the relative > merits of each language for expert systems. > Can anyone suggest some references to get me started? Unless you are already proficient in both languages, what you are likely to end up comparing is your relative understanding of the two languages. For this reason I think that your first reference to read should be Richard O'Keefe's article "Prolog and LISP Compared?" in SIGPLAN Notices, about 1984. This is a critique of an article by someone else in which the someone else fell into precisely the above-mentioned trap. (That title and date are approximate, but close.) David West dwt@zippy.eecs.umich.edu ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 87 08:43:22 est From: Walter Hamscher Subject: Common Lisp lacks portability (105 lines) It seems to me that your complaint is not about Steele & the rest of the committee's unwillingness to overconstrain the language in what is still a relatively unexplored area, but rather with implementors who chose to interpret the verb `ignore' in the sense of ``the compiler or interpreter can pretend it aint there'' instead of ``the compiler doesn't have to generate special code for it''. Sort of like the difference between (declare (ignore x)) and (ignore x), if you catch my drift. In any case, since you have obviously thought some about this problem perhaps you could suggest which of the three examples you gave were the `right' ones and what the spec should have been said, keeping in mind the purpose of the definition described so succinctly in the first three pages of CLtL. Walter Hamscher ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 87 14:11:42 EST From: "Christopher M. Maeda" Subject: AIList V5 #281 - Common Lisp Portability, Chess Reply to Ritchey Ruff on type declarations: I don't see why you are mad at Steele for saying that compilers and interpreters can ignore declarations. For example, if you type the following definition, (defun foo (x) (declare (type x integer)) ...) and you always pass integers as arguments to foo, what difference does it make (aside from performance) if the lisp system does full type checking or just assumes it's an integer? From reading your message, I think it is the buggy SLOOP macro that you should be flaming at. You said you typed the folowing definition: (defun tst (m n) (sloop for i from m to n collecting i)) Why in the world would sloop declare m and n to be of type integer when there is no such information from the programmer? That, and the fact that you gave tst floating point arguments when you knew they were declared as fixnums, is what is causing your problems. Chris Maeda ------------------------------ Date: Thu 10 Dec 87 10:27:39-PST From: George S. Cole Subject: Expert System Liability I have researched this area and a paper is forthcoming -- as soon as the USC Computer/Law Journal editorial staff are ready -- on "Tort Liability for Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems". The trite answer is yes, there can be a suit and EVERYBODY INVOLVED will be named -- because the plaintiff's lawyer will realize that the law does not clearly know who is liable (including the plaintiff). A short answer is to cite the Restatement of Torts, 2nd, Section 552: "Information Negligently Supplied for the Guidance of Others: one who, in the course of his business, profession, or employment, or in any other transaction in which he has a pecuniary interest, supplies false information for the guidance of others in their business transactions, is subject to liability for pecuniary loss caused to them by their justifiable reliance upon the information, if he fails to exercise reasonable care or competence in obtaining or communicating the information". This section was cited without success in Black, Jackson and Simmons Insurance Brokerage, Inc. v. IBM, 440 N.E. 2d 282, 109 Ill. App. 132 (1982). The phrase "in the course of his business" was strictly construed to prevent liability under this cause of action (there were others, including warranty) as the court noted that the defendant had sold both hardware and software to allow the firm to process information. But in Independant School District No. 454, Fairmont, Minnesota v. Statistical Tabulating Corporation, 359 F. Supp. 1095 (N.D. Ill, 1973) the court permitted a negligence action to be brought against the third-party statistical bureau whose miscalculations had led to the under-insurance of a school which had then burned down. The court stated: "[O]ne may be liable to another for providing inaccurate information which was relied upon and caused economic loss, although there was no direct contractual relationship between the parties...The duty to do work reasonably and in a workmanlike manner has always been imposed by law..." Factors the court suggested to consider included (1) the existence, if any, of a guarantee of correctness; (2) the defendant's knowledge that the plaintiff would rely upon the information; (3) the restriction of potential liability to a small group; (4) the absence of proof of any correction once found being delivered to the plaintiff; (5) the undesirability of requiring an innocent party to carry the burden of another's professional mistakes; and (6) the promotion of cautionary techniques among the potential defendants for the protection of all potential plaintiffs. Did the ES indeed make a mistake? Suppose Joe has said he plans to invest for 15 years -- too short for real estate, too long for bonds, and in that light the "Black Monday" might be seen as a temporary aberration. (I.e. Joe caused the harm by selling out at the bottom rather than holding on for the 15 years as planned.) Can the experts hide behind the company? Those who are professionals (which is a legal phrase for "holders of a semi-monopoly") probably cannot be fully shielded; the rest may have to seek indemnity from their corporation. It will depend in part on their employment contract, or lack thereof. Can the knowledge engineers be found liable if their mistake led to this? What sort of mistake? A standard programming flaw is not the same as a design flaw. What if the mistake lies at the boundary -- who is responsible for realizing that the computer has to have rules for assessing "market psychology" that will quantitatively assess the subtle dynamics of what the current "feel" for the market is? Did the domain experts learn that the computer was going to do more than crunch numbers? This is both a nascent and a complex legal area. My hope is that a number of the AI and ES companies realize the potential exposure and that the evolution of the law can be influenced by their behavior -- and begin to plan defensively. It is a bit more expensive initially, affecting immediate profits; but it can provide tremendous savings both for the firm and for the industry over the longer run. George S. Cole, Esq. 793 Nash Av. Menlo Park, CA 94025 GCole@Sushi.stanford.edu (until it goes away) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 87 02:57:50 GMT From: ece-csc!ncrcae!gollum!rolandi@mcnc.org (rolandi) Subject: the role of biological models in ai Marty! Sorry about our previous misunderstanding. But regarding your reply ... > You know perfectly well that, as a technology > matures, it stops modeling its techniques on "natural processors" and > develops artificial substitutes that were previously unknown. You > don't fly by flapping wings, your car doesn't propel itself with legs, > and your air conditioner sweats as a result of cooling, not the other > way around. We first learn from natural processors, and then we > progress by inventing artificial processors. You make a good point here but, in a way, your examples labor against the interest of your argument. According to some AI theorists, (see Schank, R.C., (1984) The Cognitive Computer. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley) AI is "an investigation into human understanding through which we learn ...about the complexities of our own intelligence." Thus, at least for some AI researchers, the automation of intelligent behavior is secondary to the expansion and formalization of our self-understanding. This is assumed to be the result of creating computational "accounts" of (typically intellectual) behavior. Researchers write programs which display the performance characteristics of humans within some given domain. The efficacy of a program is a function of the similarity of its performance to the human performance after which it was modeled. Thus AI programs are (often) created in order to "explain" the processes that they model. Although one of your examples provides an instance of a machine that employs principles derived from studying natural flight, (airplanes) I don't think many people would argue that the airplane was invented in order to "explain" flight. Of your other examples, I do not think that the workings of an automobile have ever been thought to provide insights into the nature of human locomotion. Nor do I believe that the "sweat" of an air conditioner is in any meaningful way related to perspiration in humans. -w.rolandi ncrcae!gollum!rolandi Look Boss, DisClaim! DisClaim! ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** >From LAWS@KL.SRI.COM Fri Dec 18 05:19:13 1987 Date: Thu 17 Dec 1987 23:53-PST From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-To: AIList@SRI.COM Us-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList V5 #284 - RACTER, Mac ES Tools, KR References, CogSci To: AIList@SRI.COM Status: RO AIList Digest Friday, 18 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 284 Today's Topics: Query - OPS5 for Atari ST, Software - RACTER, AI Tools - Mac ES Tools, References - Knowledge Representation Techniques, Cognitive Science - Princeton & UCSD ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 12:25:13 +0100 From: mcvax!lasso!ralph@uunet.UU.NET (Ralph P. Sobek) Subject: OPS5 for Atari ST I'm looking for information concerning OPS5 on an Atari ST. Its existence was mentioned in Vol.4, No. 203 of AIList Digest. Does anybody have any more information? Is it Public Domain? Price? Does it require Lisp, and if so which one? Where can I get it? How does it compare to the other versions that float around the net? Is there any room left in the ST once OPS5 is loaded? Thanx in advance. Ralph P. Sobek UUCP: mcvax!inria!lasso!ralph or ralph@lasso.UUCP Internet: lasso!ralph@{inria.inria.fr or uunet.UU.NET} or ralph@lasso.laas.fr ARPA: sobek@shadow.Berkeley.EDU (automatic forwarding) BITNET: SOBEK@FRMOP11 ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 87 20:50:17 GMT From: jbn@glacier.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) Reply-to: glacier!jbn@kestrel.arpa (John B. Nagle) Subject: Re: Request for RACTER RACTER is available as a commercial product. Try a computer store with a good selection of games. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 87 00:42:32 GMT From: Robert Stanley Reply-to: Robert Stanley Subject: Re: Request for RACTER In article <8712041829.AA19308@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> ST502042@BROWNVM.BITNET.UUCP writes: >Howdy! >I am interested in locating the (in)famous 'AI' program RACTER. There is a commercial version of Racter available for the Apple Macintosh, published by Mindscape. I do not have their address to hand, but they are a major player in the Mac games market (Deja Vu, Balance of Power, etc.) and so should be fairly easy to track down via a computer store or magazine. Racter is in no way ai, but it can be fairly amusing. Robert_S -- R.A. Stanley Cognos Incorporated S-mail: P.O. Box 9707 Voice: (613) 738-1440 (Research: there are 2!) 3755 Riverside Drive FAX: (613) 738-0002 Compuserve: 76174,3024 Ottawa, Ontario uucp: decvax!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!cognos!roberts CANADA K1G 3Z4 ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 87 23:04:49 GMT From: Will Clinger Reply-to: willc@tekchips.UUCP (Will Clinger) Subject: Mac ES Tools In article <12356608461.22.GCOLE@Sushi.Stanford.EDU> GCOLE@SUSHI.STANFORD.EDU (George S. Cole) writes: > The paucity of shells for the Macintosh is puzzling. There are three >language environments which can be used to build such a shell currently on >the market: (1) AAIS Prolog; (2) Expertelligence's ExperCommonLisp, and >(3) Allegro Common LISP from Coral Software. I'm curious as to why MacScheme+Toolsmith from Semantic Microsystems isn't in this list. (For that matter, I wonder why things like MPW C aren't in the list, but I can at least imagine a reason for excluding them.) William Clinger ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Dec 87 09:22:50 EST From: Bruce Nevin Subject: ref. comparing KR techniques In AIList Digest 5.283 (11 Dec 87) Guilherme Bittencourt asks for ". . . papers comparing different techniques of Knowledge Representation." Try: Gregory, Dik, Philosophy and practice in knowledge representation. In Joseph Zeidner (ed.), _Human Productivity Enhancement_, Vol. I, NY: Praeger (1986). I assume you are familiar with the papers in the Brachman & Levesque _Readings in KR_. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 87 13:48:28 GMT From: sunybcs!rapaport@ames.arpa (William J. Rapaport) Subject: Re: References wanted In article <3237@lifia.UUCP> gb@lifia.UUCP (Guilherme Bittencourt) writes: > > I am very interested in recent publications concerning >Knowledge Representation tutorials or surveys, and papers >comparing different techniques of Knowledge Representation. A new collection of essays, based on the ca. 1983 IEEE Computer special issue on KR, has just been published: G. McCalla & N. Cercone (eds.), The Knowledge Frontier: Essays in the Representation of Knowledge (New York: Springer-Verlag). William J. Rapaport Assistant Professor Dept. of Computer Science||internet: rapaport@cs.buffalo.edu SUNY Buffalo ||bitnet: rapaport@sunybcs.bitnet Buffalo, NY 14260 ||uucp: {ames,boulder,decvax,rutgers}!sunybcs!rapaport (716) 636-3193, 3180 || ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Dec 09:51:31 1987 From: rjb%research.att.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Reply to request for references on Knowledge Representation In reply to article <3237@lifia.UUCP> [gb@lifia.UUCP (Guilherme Bittencourt)]: Dear Guilherme, Among the best survey articles there are is one by Hector Levesque in the Annual Review of Computer Science, Vol. 1, 1986. This is published by Annual Reviews, Inc., of Palo Alto, California. Hector's article is entitled "Knowledge Representation and Reasoning." Ray Reiter has an article on "Nonmonotonic Reasoning," to appear in the next volume of the same series. You might also refer to our Readings in Knowledge Representation book (Morgan Kaufmann, 1985); it includes a brief introduction to the field, and a number of important articles highlighting, among other things, different techniques of KR. The section on KR in the AI Handbook is always a reasonable place to start, as well. Finally, I have just completed a brief (20-page) survey/tutorial article for the AT&T Technical Journal, entitled "The Basics of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning." I can send you a copy if you would like. - Ron Brachman ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 14:28:10 PST From: Marie Bienkowski Subject: Cognitive Science Program at Princeton CC: bjr@mind.princeton.edu tjhorton@rutgers.edu Princeton University has an excellent Cognitive Science program, although there is no department by that name. They have active research programs on automated tutoring, vocabulary acquisition, reasoning, belief revision, connectionism (with Bellcore), computational linguistics, cognitive anthropology, and probably more that I've missed. The main sponsoring departments are Psychology, Philosophy and Linguistics. A good person to contact is bjr@mind.princeton.edu, who is, in real life, a professor in the Psychology Dept. His p-mail address is: Brian Reiser Cognitive Science Laboratory 221 Nassau St. Princeton, NJ 08542 Marie Bienkowski ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Dec 87 10:31:52 pst From: norman%ics@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Donald A. Norman) Subject: Cognitive Science programs (once and for all) Yes, there is a Cognitive Science Society. It hosts an annual conference (the next one will be in Montreal). It publishes the journal "Cognitive Science." You can find out about it by writing the secretary treasurer: Kurt Vanlehn Department of Psychology Carnegie-Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213 vanlehn@a.psy.cmu.edu At UCSD, we are indeed in the process of establishing a Department of Cognitive Science. We are now hiring, but formal classes will not start until the Fall of 1989. We will have both an undergraduate and a PhD program. We now have an Interdisciplinary PhD program: students enter some department, X, and join the interdisciplinary program after completing the first year requirements of X. They then receive a "PhD in X and Congitive Sicnefce." We have about 20 students now and have given out about 3 PhDs. (One of these is now in Computer Science at Toronto: Mike Mozer) The strengths are in the computational understanding of cognition, with strong emphasis in psychology, AI, linguisitics, neuroscience, philosophy, and social cognition. PDP (connectionism) is one of the strengths at UCSD, and the approach permeates all of the different areas of Cognitive Science, even among those of us who do not directly do work on weights, algorithms, or connectionist architectures: the strength grows by the hour). Don Norman Donald A. Norman Institute for Cognitive Science C-015 University of California, San Diego La Jolla, California 92093 INTERNET: norman%ics@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu INTERNET: danorman@ucsd.edu BITNET: danorman@ucsd.bitnet ARPA: norman@nprdc.arpa UNIX:{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!ics!norman ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** >From LAWS@KL.SRI.COM Fri Dec 18 07:15:38 1987 Date: Thu 17 Dec 1987 23:59-PST From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-To: AIList@SRI.COM Us-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList V5 #285 - Probability, Simulation, DAEDALUS, Methodology To: AIList@SRI.COM Status: RO AIList Digest Friday, 18 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 285 Today's Topics: Query & Puzzle - Probability Bounds, Announcements - Simulation List & Issue of DAEDALUS on AI, Philosophy - The Role of Biological Models in AI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 11 Dec 87 14:10:21 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!tom@uunet.uu.net (Tom Kane) Subject: Probability Bounds from Bayes Theory: (A Problem). I am sending this letter out to the network to ask for solutions to a particular problem of Bayesian Inference. Below is the text of the problem, and at the end is the mathematical statement of the information given. Simply, I am asking the questions: 1) Can you find bounds on the final result. If so, how? 2) If not, why is it not possible to do so? What is missing in the specification of the problem? 3) If you get nowhere with this problem, would you be able to solve it if you were given the information: p(pv|t or l)=0.9? I am interested in the problem of providing probability bounds for events specified in a Bayesian setting when not all the necessary conditional probabilities are provided in setting up the problem. PROBLEM ~~~~~~~ (A problem relevant to the handling of Uncertainty in Expert Systems.) We want to know the probability of a patient having both lung cancer and tuberculosis based on the fact that this person has had a positive reading in a chest X-ray. We are given the following pieces of information: 1. The probability that a person with lung cancer will have a positive chest X-ray is 0.9. 2. The probability that a person with tuberculosis will have a positive chest X-ray is 0.95. 3. The probability that a person with neither lung cancer nor tuberculosis will have a positive chest X-ray is 0.07. 4. In the town of interest, 4 percent of the population have lung cancer, and three percent have tuberculosis. EVENTS ~~~~~~ l = lung cancer; t = tuberculosis; pv = positive chest X-ray SETUP ~~~~~ In the statement of the problem below:- ~l means 'not l'. ~l, ~t means 'not l and not t'. t or l means 't or l' where 'not', 'and' , and 'or' are logical operators. so that: p(~l, ~t) means probability( not l and not t). Also, p(pv|l) means the conditional probability of event pv, given event l. PRIORS ~~~~~~ p(l) = 0.04; p(t) = 0.03; p(~l, ~t) = 0.95 CONDITIONALS ~~~~~~~~~~~~ p(pv|l) = 0.9; p(pv|t) = 0.95; p(pv| ~t,~l) = 0.07 (You are not given p(pv| t or l) ) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please mail all solutions or comments to me, and I will let interested parties know what the results are. (I will specially treasure attempts which don't use independence assumptions.) Thanks in advance to anyone who will spend time on this problem... Regards, Tom Kane. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 17 Dec 87 09:30:06 EST From: Paul Fishwick Subject: New Simulation List ------------------------------------------ ****** NOTICE: NEW MAILING LIST ********** ------------------------------------------ on S I M U L A T I O N GENERAL: There has not been a news group on the topic of simulation, so I have decided to start one. Actually, it is a mailing list and if it grows into a popular forum then we can formally apply to have it made a news "group" (which apparently requires votes,etc.). TOPICS: All topics connected with simulation are welcome (no flaming please!). Some sample topics are listed: real time simulation methods flight simulation parallel architectures for simulation analysis and modeling simulation and training distributed simulation artificial intelligence and simulation automatic generation and analysis of models analog vs. digital methods, hybrids continuous, discrete, and combined methods qualitative modeling application specific questions theory of simulation and systems queries and comments about available simulation software announcements of simulation-related talks and seminars graphics and image processing in simulation HOW TO JOIN: To participate in the mailing list you need to know two net addresses: simulation@fish.cis.ufl.edu - for sending topical mail messages simulation-request@fish.cis.ufl.edu - for subscribing/unsubscribing to the list (administration) METHOD: At first, we will operate on an automatic mode (unedited list): All mail sent to 'simulation' will be forwarded automatically to everyone else on the list. My SUN is strictly acting as a mail handler. As interesting topics come up and more people chip in, then I will try my hand at moderating the list to form a digest which will be shipped periodically. I'm sure that most net readers subscribe to both kinds of these mailing lists already. So let's go! Paul Fishwick University of Florida ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Dec 87 15:22:40 EST From: amcad!billb@husc6.harvard.edu Subject: New Issue of DAEDALUS on AI In response to numerous queries re. forthcoming issue of DAEDALUS on AI, we would like to provide Table of Contents for this 320-page volume and information on how to get a copy. Contents include essays by the following: Seymour Papert - "One AI or Many?" Hubert L. Dreyfus & Stuart E. Dreyfus - "Making a Mind Versus Modeling a Brain: AI Back at a Branchpoint" Robert Sokolowski - "Natural and Artificial Intelligence" Pamela McCorduck - "Artificial Intelligence: An Apercu" Jack D. Cowan & David H. Sharp - "Neural Nets and AI" Jacob T. Schwartz - "The New Connectionism: Developing Relationships Between Neuroscience and AI" George N. Reeke Jr. & Gerald M. Edelman - "Real Brains and AI" W. Daniel Hillis - "Intelligence as an Emergent Behavior; or, The Songs of Eden" David L. Waltz - "The Prospects for Building Truly Intelligent Machines" Anya Hurlbert & Tomasio Poggio - "Making Machines (and AI) See" Sherry Turkle - "AI and Psychoanalysis: A New Alliance" Hilary Putnam - "Much Ado About Not Very Much" Daniel C. Dennett - "When Philosophers Encounter AI" John McCarthy - "Mathematical Logic and AI" Copies of this volume of DAEDALUS are available @ $5 each ($1 additional for surface mail delivery outside the U.S.) by writing to: DAEDALUS Business Office P.O. Box 515 Canton, MA. 02021 U.S.A. Email orders can be sent, along with credit card billing number to: daedalus%amcad.uucp@husc6.harvard.edu or harvard!husc6!amcad!daedalus Holiday greetings, Guild Nichols DAEDALUS ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 87 03:06:02 GMT From: marque!gryphon!sarima@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Stan Friesen) Subject: Re: the role of biological models in ai In article <23@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> rolandi@gollum.UUCP () writes: > > According to some AI theorists, (see Schank, >R.C., (1984) The Cognitive Computer. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley) >AI is "an investigation into human understanding through which we learn >...about the complexities of our own intelligence." Thus, at least for >some AI researchers, the automation of intelligent behavior is secondary >to the expansion and formalization of our self-understanding. This is >assumed to be the result of creating computational "accounts" of (typically >intellectual) behavior. Researchers write programs which display the >performance characteristics of humans within some given domain. The >efficacy of a program is a function of the similarity of its performance >to the human performance after which it was modeled. Thus AI programs are >(often) created in order to "explain" the processes that they model. > My problem with this class of AI research is that I question it validity/usefulness. Why should there be only *one* algorithm for a particular 'behavior'? What evidence do we have that the algorithms that we are writing into our programs are in fact related in any way th the ones used by the human brain? Mere parallel behavior is NOT sufficient evidence to claim increased understanding of a human behavior, some evidence from neurology and psychology is necessary to at least demonstrate applicibility. In particular, I find most current AI algorithms to be far too analytical to be realistic models of human, or even animal, cognition. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** >From LAWS@KL.SRI.COM Sat Dec 19 05:24:26 1987 Date: Fri 18 Dec 1987 23:55-PST From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-To: AIList@SRI.COM Us-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList V5 #286 - Seminars, Conferences To: AIList@SRI.COM Status: R AIList Digest Saturday, 19 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 286 Today's Topics: Seminars - Practical Reasoning and Unstructured Work (BBN) & Distributing Deductions to Multiple Processors (SRI) & Matrix Proof Methods for First Order Logics (SRI), Conferences - Request for AAAI-88 Workshop Proposals & AAAAIC88 Aerospace Applications of AI & Computers and Law & 3rd CAD/CAM Robotics and Factories of the Future ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed 9 Dec 87 08:33:12-EST From: Dori Wells Subject: Seminar - Practical Reasoning and Unstructured Work (BBN) BBN Science Development Program Language And Cognition Seminar ISSUES IN THE STUDY OF PRACTICAL REASONING: DESIGNING COMPUTER SUPPORT FOR "UNSTRUCTURED WORK" Constance Perin Sloan School of Management BBN Laboratories Inc. 10 Moulton Street Large Conference Room, 2nd Floor 10:00 a.m., Wednesday, December 9, 1987 Abstract: To develop computer applications that are relevant to nonroutine, relatively unstructured work processes requires descriptions of them in terms of the rational, irrational, and nonrational thought they employ. Deriving structures from the particularities of these tasks and from the relationships among tasks is one representational problem which needs to be addressed in designing computer support for such tasks. Another is how to acknowledge the influence of contexts on tasks. A third problem is how to decrease the probability of miscommunication and increase that of shared interpretations in complex organizations. The perspectives of discourse analysis, semantic analysis, and figurative language analysis seem to be appropriate to this set of questions. In this talk, I will discuss how these types of observation and analysis might be employed in designing research methods appropriate to knowledge acquisition for tasks in unstructured work domains. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 87 15:38:13 PST From: Amy Lansky Subject: Seminar - Distributing Deductions to Multiple Processors (SRI) DISTRIBUTING BACKWARD-CHAINING DEDUCTIONS TO MULTIPLE PROCESSORS Vineet Singh (VSINGH@SPAR-20.ARPA) Schlumberger Palo Alto Research 11:00 AM, MONDAY, December 14 SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 This talk presents a parallel execution model called PM for backward-chaining deduction with horn clauses. The target class of multiprocessors for this work has the following properties: (1) there are a finite number of MIMD processors; (2) each processor has a finite amount of local memory; (3) there is no global memory; (4) processors can communicate only by sending messages to each other; (5) message delay is a function of the amount of data in the message and the distance between source and destination; (6) each processor can perform backward-chaining deductions based on the subset of the program that it contains. For this multiprocessor class, PM can exploit the most parallelism among existing execution models that use data-driven control. In particular, PM can exploit or-parallelism, and-parallelism, and pipelining. One problem area that PM addresses is the design of a resource allocator to map the parallel processes to hardware resources for processing, storage, and communication. The allocation strategy proposed is for use at compile-time (as opposed to run-time) and is application-independent and multiprocessor-independent. This strategy works subject to two restrictions. First, the type of backward-chaining deduction is restricted. In particular, no recursive clauses are allowed, unit clauses must be ground, and certain probabilistic uniformity and independence assumptions must apply. Second, a partitioning of the database is assumed to be given. The allocator consists of an initial allocation phase followed by a local minimization phase. In the initial allocation phase, database partitions are allocated to processors one at a time using a greedy algorithm. The local minimization phase consists of a sequence of cost-reducing reallocations of partitions to neighboring processors. Considerable speedups are obtained by using this allocation strategy. These speedups compare favorably with an unreachable upper bound and speedups obtained using random allocations. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Dec 87 13:09:25 PST From: Amy Lansky Subject: Seminar - Matrix Proof Methods for First Order Logics (SRI) MATRIX PROOF METHODS FOR FIRST ORDER LOGICS Lincoln A. Wallen (LW@SALLY.UTEXAS.EDU) Dept. of Computer Sciences, Univ. of Texas at Austin 11:00 AM, MONDAY, December 21 SRI International, Building E, Room EJ228 We present matrix-based proof methods for classical, modal, and intuitionistic first order logics. The methods are designed to facilitate automated proof search and, as such, represent a comprehensive extension of resolution-style techniques to modal and intuitionistic logics. We emphasise how the matrix methods arise from an analysis of the structure of Gentzen sequent calculi. This suggests a general method for obtaining efficient proof systems for other logics of interest to Computing Science and Artificial Intelligence. VISITORS: Please arrive 5 minutes early so that you can be escorted up from the E-building receptionist's desk. Thanks! ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 18 Dec 87 08:46:53 EST From: Joseph L. Katz. Subject: Conference - Request for AAAI-88 Workshop Proposals AAAI-88 Workshops: Request for Proposals The AAAI-88 Program Committee invites proposals for the Workshop Program of the Seventh National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-88), to be held at Saint Paul, Minn. from August 21, 1988 to August 26, 1988. Gathering in an informal setting, workshop participants will have the opportunity to meet and discuss issues with a selected focus---providing for active exchange among researchers and practioners on topics of mutual interest. Members from all segments of the AI community are encouraged to submit workshop proposals for review. To encourage interaction and a broad exchange of ideas, the workshops will be kept small---preferably under 35 participants. Attendance should be limited to active participants only. The format of workshop presentations will be determined by the organizers of the workshop, but ample time must be allotted for general discussion. Workshops can range in length from two hours to two days, but most workshops will last a half day or a full day. Proposals for workshops should be between 1 and 2 pages in length, and should contain: 1/ a brief description the workshop identifying specific issues that will be focused on. 2/ a discussion of why the workshop would be of interest at this time, 3/ the names and addresses of the organizing committee, preferably 3 or 4 people not all at the same site, 4/ a list of several potential participants, and 5/ a proposed schedule. Workshop proposals should be submitted as soon as possible, but no later than 1 February 1988. Proposals will be reviewed as they are received and resources allocated as workshops are approved. Organizers will be notified of the committee's decision no later than 15 February 1988. Workshop organizers will be responsible for: 1/ producing a Call for Participation in the workshop, which will be mailed to AAAI members by AAAI, 2/ reviewing requests to participate in the workshop, and determining the workshop participants, 3/ scheduling the activities of the workshop, and 4/ preparing a review of the workshop, which will be printed in the AI Magazine. AAAI will provide logistical support, will provide a meeting place for the workshop, and, in conjunction with the organizers, will determine the date and time of the workshop. Please submit your workshop proposals, and enquiries concerning workshops, to: Joseph Katz MITRE Corporation MS L203 Burlington Road Bedford, MA 01730 (617) 271 5200 or Katz@Mitre-Bedford.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 87 10:01:00 EDT From: "ETD2::WILSONJ" Reply-to: "ETD2::WILSONJ" Subject: Conference - AAAAIC88 Aerospace Applications of AI AAAIC88 CALL FOR PAPERS AEROSPACE APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CONFERENCE 1988 With Neural Networks Aerospace Applications Special Interest Sessions Stouffer's Hotel, Dayton, OH, October 25-27, 1988 Particulars - Tutorials will be held on 24 Oct 88. Workshops will be held on 28 Oct 88. There will be exhibits by AI companies and related industries as well as product familiarization sessions. There will be up to 18 technical sessions in 5 half-day periods, luncheon speakers and a banquet. The 4th Aerospace Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference will investigate a wide range of topics with heavy emphasis this year on neural network applications in aerospace. Topic areas for which timely, original, technical papers are solicited include: Integrating Neural Networks and Knowledge Processing with Neural Nets Expert Systems Robotics Neural Networks and Signal Processing Data Fusion/Sensor Fusion Machine Learning, Cognition & the Combinatorial Optimization for Cockpit Scheduling and Resource Control Machine Vision & Avionics Applications Natural Language Recognition and Neural Networks and Man-Machine Synthesis Interface Issues Self-Organization in Avionics Neural Network Development Tools Applied Adaptive-Resonance Applied Biological Models Cooperative and Competitive Network Parallel Processing & Neural Networks Dynamics in Aerospace Automatic Target Recognition Learning Theory and Techniques Back Propagation with Momentum, Simulation and Implementation of Shared Weights or Recurrent Neural Networks Network Architectures Technology - Microchips, Optics, etc. Expert System Development Tools Applications of Expert Systems in Aerospace Scheduling Manufacturing Operational and Maintenance Issues Design Automation Using Expert Systems Data Management Real Time Expert Systems Acquisition Management Knowledge Base Simulation Verification and Validation of ES Advanced Problem Solving Techniques Diagnostics and Fault Isolation ABSTRACT DEADLINE : 26 Feb 88 Authors are invited to submit abstracts of 500 words in any of the above topic areas. Please avoid acronyms or abbreviations in the title of the paper. A short biographical sketch of the author(s) to include citizenship, mailing address and telephone number must be included with the abstract. Final manuscripts for papers are due 19 Aug 88. James R. Johnson Send abstracts to: AFWAL/AAOR WPAFB, OH 45433 Sponsored by Dayton SIGART and the Association of Computing Machinery. ------------------------------ Date: Fri 18 Dec 87 19:34:50-PST From: ELIOT@ECLA.USC.EDU Subject: Conference - Computers and Law CONFERENCE NOTICE International Conference on Computers and Law Dates: February 8-10, 1988 Location: The Miramar Sheraton Hotel, Santa Monica, Ca. Purpose: This Conference will bring together legal experts, computer users, computer product developers, buyers/sellers of computers, and related interested parties in order to explore common legal and business problems related to all areas of computing. Topics: Emerging Technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Protection and Litigation of Intellectual Property Rights, Independent Contractor Relationships, Information Systems Crimes, Malpractice Potential and Prevention, Computers and Criminal Justice, and additonal topics. Sponsors: IFIP Technical Committee on Computers and Society, Law and Technology Section of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Computer Law Section of the San Francisco Bar Association, High Technology Exchange Inc., Irell & Manella Attorneys at Law, Laventhol & Horwath Management Consultants, Pactific Bell, and Peter Norton Computing Inc. Conference Fees: Cost is $395.00 until January 8, 1988, and $495.00 thereafter. Send registration fee made out to "ICCL88" either by check or money order to Michael Krieger (address below). Attendees are responsible for obtaining their own hotel reservations, contact the Miramar Sheraton Hotel at (213) 394-3731, mention the Conference rates of $110/night for single and $125/night for a double. Additional Information: For additional information and a Conference brochure, contact the Conference Chair: Michael M. Krieger c/o ICCL88 P.O. Box 24619 Los Angeles, Ca. 90024. Krieger may be reached by phone at (213) 208-2461. Electronic Mail: As a courtesy to the Conference, Dr. Eliot of the University of Southern California has agreed to assist interested attendees via electronic mail at ELIOT@ECLA.USC.EDU on the Arpanet. He can help answer limited questions about the Conference. ------------------------------ Date: 16 Dec 87 18:14:18 GMT From: siemens!liu@princeton.edu (Peiya Liu) Subject: Conference - 3rd CAD/CAM Robotics and Factories of the Future Call for Papers Third International Conference on CAD/CAM Automation Robotics and Factories of the Future Southfield Hilton, Southfield, MI August 14-17, 1988 The main objective of this conference is to bring together researchers and practitioners from government, industries, and academia interested in the multidisciplinary and interorganizational productivity aspects of advanced manufacturing systems utilizing CAD/CAM, CAE, CIM, Parametric Technology, AI, Robotics, Factory of Future, AGV technology, etc., and to address productivity enhancement issues of other hybrid automated systems that combine machine skills and human intelligence in areas of application both manufacturing (aerospace, automotive, civil, electrical, mechanical, industrial, computer, chemical, etc.) and non-manufacturing (such as forestry, mining, service and leisure, process industry, medicine and rehabilitation). Papers are invited for the section on AI in Manufacturing and Robotics of The Third International Conference on CAD/CAM Automation, Robotics and Factories of the Future(CAR & FOF). Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following artificial intellgience areas: Manufacturing Workcell Diagnosis, Process Planning, Robot Motion Planning, Scheduling, Knowledge Representation of Workcells, Sensor-based Programming, Vision, and Object Representation. Deadline: Three copies of an extended abstract should be sent to the section organizer at the address given below. Each copy of the extended abstract should contain the title of the paper, full name(s) and addresses of all authors, objectives, methods and significance of the reported results. The closing date for receipt of abstracts is February 1, 1988. Authors will be notified of acceptance by March 15, 1988. Camera-ready manuscript will be due by April 15, 1988. The section organizer: Dr. Peiya Liu, Siemens Research and Technology Labs, 105 College Road East, Princeton, NJ 08540. Csnet: liu@siemens.com, Tel:(609)734-3349. The conference general chairman: Dr. Biren Prasad, Electronic Data Systems, EDS Pinehurst #201, 1400 North Woodward Ave, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan 48013, USA. General information inquires may be directed to (313)645-4714. Publication: Manuscripts of full length papers accepted and presented at the conference will be reviewed and published in the Conference Proceedings by Springer-Verlag, Berlin. Selected papers could be reviewed and published in one of the relevant journals: Journal of Intelligent Systems and Machines (IMPACT); International Journal of Vehicle Design: Int. Journal of Technology Management: Int. Journal of Materials and Product Technology; Advances in Engineering Software; Engineering Analysis; Microsoftware for Engineers; Int. Journal of Robotics and Computer Integrated Manufacturing; and Int. Journal of Computer Applications in Technology. ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** >From LAWS@KL.SRI.COM Sat Dec 19 07:24:53 1987 Date: Sat 19 Dec 1987 00:04-PST From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-To: AIList@SRI.COM Us-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList V5 #287 - Conferences To: AIList@SRI.COM Status: R AIList Digest Saturday, 19 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 287 Today's Topics: Conferences - ICEBOL3 Symbolic and Logical Computing & Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning & ICSC'88 AI: Theory and Applications & Visual Form and Motion Perception ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 08 Dec 87 09:23:45 -0800 From: Richard Nelson Subject: Conference - ICEBOL3 Symbolic and Logical Computing Here's an announcement for a conference with a twist: it includes symbolic languages such as Icon and SNOBOL4. cheers Richard ------- Forwarded Message Date: 7 Dec 87 12:03 CDT From: ERIC%SDNET.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU To: NELSON@Q2.ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: BITNET mail follows ICEBOL3 April 21-22, 1988 Dakota State College Madison, SD 57042 ICEBOL3, the International Conference on Symbolic and Logical Computing, is designed for teachers, scholars, and programmers who want to meet to exchange ideas about non-numeric computing. In addition to a focus on SNOBOL, SPITBOL, and Icon, ICEBOL3 will feature introductory and technical presentations on other dangerously powerful computer languages such as Prolog and LISP, as well as on applications of BASIC, Pascal, and FORTRAN for processing strings of characters. Topics of discussion will include artificial intelligence, expert systems, desk-top publishing, and a wide range of analyses of texts in English and other natural languages. Parallel tracks of concurrent sessions are planned: some for experienced computer users and others for interested novices. Both mainframe and microcomputer applications will be discussed. ICEBOL's coffee breaks, social hours, lunches, and banquet will provide a series of opportunities for participants to meet and informally exchange information. Sessions will be scheduled for "birds of a feather" to discuss common interests (for example, BASIC users group, implementations of SNOBOL, computer generated poetry). Call For Papers Abstracts (minimum of 250 words) or full texts of papers to be read at ICEBOL3 are invited on any application of non-numeric programming. Planned sessions include the following: artificial intelligence expert systems natural language processing analysis of literary texts (including bibliography, concordance, and index preparation) linguistic and lexical analysis (including parsing and machine translation) preparation of text for electronic publishing computer assisted instruction grammar and style checkers music analysis. Papers must be in English and should not exceed twenty minutes reading time. Abstracts and papers should be received by January 15, 1988. Notification of acceptance will follow promptly. Papers will be published in ICEBOL3 Proceedings. Presentations at previous ICEBOL conferences were made by Susan Hockey (Oxford), Ralph Griswold (Arizona), James Gimpel (Lehigh), Mark Emmer (Catspaw, Inc.), Robert Dewar (New York University), and many others. Copies of ICEBOL 86 Proceedings are available. ICEBOL3 is sponsored by The Division of Liberal Arts and The Business and Education Institute of DAKOTA STATE COLLEGE Madison, South Dakota For Further Information All correspondence including abstracts and papers as well as requests for registration materials should be sent to: Eric Johnson ICEBOL Director 114 Beadle Hall Dakota State College Madison, SD 57042 U.S.A. (605) 256-5270 Inquiries, abstracts, and correspondence may also be sent via electronic mail to: ERIC @ SDNET (BITNET) ------- End of Forwarded Message ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 10 Dec 14:29:20 1987 From: rjb%research.att.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Conference - Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning CALL FOR PAPERS FIRST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION AND REASONING Royal York Hotel Toronto, Ontario, CANADA May 15-18, 1989 Sponsored by the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence, with support from AAAI, IJCAI, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the Information Technology Research Centre of Ontario, in cooperation with AISB and ACM SIGART (pending approval) The idea of explicit representations of knowledge, manipulated by general-purpose inference algorithms, underlies much of the work in artificial intelligence, from natural language to expert systems. A growing number of researchers are interested in the principles governing systems based on this idea. This conference will bring together these researchers in a more intimate setting than that of the general AI conferences. In particular, all authors will be expected to appear and give presentations of adequate length to present substantial results. Accepted papers will be collected in a conference proceedings, to be published by Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc. The conference will focus on principles of commonsense reasoning and representation, as distinct from concerns of engineering and details of implementation. Thus of direct interest are logical specifications of reasoning behaviors, comparative analyses of competing algorithms and theories, and analyses of the correctness and/or the computational complexity of reasoning algorithms. Papers that attempt to move away from or refute the knowledge-based paradigm in a principled way are also welcome, so long as appropriate connections are made to the central body of work in the field. Submissions are encouraged in at least the following topic areas: Analogical Reasoning Qualitative Reasoning Commonsense Reasoning Temporal Reasoning Deductive Reasoning Planning Diagnostic and Knowledge Representation Formalisms Abductive Reasoning Theories of the Commonsense World Evidential Reasoning Theories of Knowledge and Belief Inductive Reasoning Belief Management and Revision Nonmonotonic Reasoning Formal Task and Domain Specifications REVIEW OF PAPERS The Program Committee will review extended abstracts (not complete papers). Each submission will be read by at least two members of the Committee and judged on clarity, significance, and originality. An important criterion for acceptance of a paper is that it clearly contribute to principles of representation and reasoning that are likely to influence current and future AI practice. Extended abstracts should contain enough information to enable the Program Committee to identify the principal contribution of the research and its importance. It should also be clear from the extended abstract how the work compares to related work in the field. References to relevant literature must be included. Submitted papers must never have been published. Submissions must also be substantively different from papers currently under review and must not be submitted elsewhere before the author notification date (December 15, 1988). SUBMISSION OF PAPERS Submitted abstracts must be at most eight (8) double-spaced pages. All abstracts must be submitted on 8-1/2" x 11" paper (or alternatively, a4), and typed in 12-point font (pica on standard typewriter). Dot matrix printout is not acceptable. Each submission should include the names and complete addresses of all authors. Also, authors should indicate under the title which of the topic ares listed above best describes their paper (if none is appropriate, please give a set of keywords that best describe the topic of the paper). Abstracts must be received no later than November 1, 1988, at the address listed immediately below. Authors will be notified of the Program Committee's decision by December 15, 1988. Final camera-ready copies of the full papers will be due a short time later, on February 15, 1989. Final papers will be at most twelve (12) double-column pages in the conference proceedings. Send five (5) copies of extended abstracts [one copy is acceptable from countries where access to copiers is limited] to Ron Brachman and Hector Levesque, Program Co-chairs First International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning c/o AT&T Bell Laboratories 600 Mountain Avenue, Room 3C-439 Murray Hill, NJ 07974 USA Inquiries of a general nature can be addressed to the Conference Chair: Raymond Reiter, Conference Chair First International Conference on Principles of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning c/o Department of Computer Science University of Toronto 10 Kings College Road Toronto, Ontario M5S 1A4 CANADA electronic mail: reiter@ai.toronto.edu IMPORTANT DATES Submission deadline: November 1, 1988 Author notification date: December 15, 1988 Camera-ready copy due to publisher: February 15, 1989 Conference: May 15-18, 1989 PROGRAM COMMITTEE James Allen (University of Rochester) Giuseppe Attardi (Delphi SpA, Italy) Woody Bledsoe (MCC/University of Texas) Alan Bundy (Edinburgh University) Eugene Charniak (Brown University) Veronica Dahl (Simon Fraser University) Koichi Furukawa (ICOT) Johan de Kleer (Xerox PARC) Herve Gallaire (European Computer Industry Research Center, Munich) Michael Genesereth (Stanford University) Michael Georgeff (SRI International) Pat Hayes (Xerox PARC) Geoff Hinton (University of Toronto) Bob Kowalski (Imperial College) Vladimir Lifschitz (Stanford University) Alan Mackworth (University of British Columbia) Drew McDermott (Yale University) Tom Mitchell (Carnegie-Mellon University) Robert Moore (SRI International) Judea Pearl (UCLA) Stan Rosenschein (SRI International) Stuart Shapiro (SUNY at Buffalo) Yoav Shoham (Stanford University) William Woods (Applied Expert Systems) ------------------------------ Date: 10 Dec 87 23:23:35 GMT From: munnari!mulga.oz.au!isaac@uunet.UU.NET (Isaac Balbin) Subject: Conference - ICSC'88 AI: Theory and Applications Call for Papers International Computer Science Conference '88 Hong Kong, December 19-21, 1988 Artificial Intelligence: Theory and Applications Sponsored by THE COMPUTER SOCIETY OF THE IEEE, HONG KONG CHAPTER International Computer Science Conference '88 is to be the first international conference in Hong Kong devoted to computer science. The purpose of the conference is to bring together people from academia and industry of the East and of the West, who are interested in problems related to computer science. The main focus of this conference will be on the Theory and Applications of Artificial Intelligence. Our expectation is that this conference will provide a forum for the sharing of research advances and practical experiences among those working in computer science. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: AI Architectures Expert Systems Knowledge Engineering Logic Programming Machine Learning Natural Languages Neural Networks Pattern Recognition Robotics CAD/CAM Chinese Computing Distributed Systems Information Systems Office Automation Software Engineering Paper Submissions Submit four copies of the paper by June 15, 1988 to either of the Program Co-Chairmen: Dr. Jean-Louis Lassez Dr. Francis Y.L. Chin Room H1-A12 Centre of Computer Studies and IBM Thomas J. Watson Applications Research Center University of Hong Kong P.O. Box 218 Pokfulam Road Yorktown Heights NY Hong Kong 10598 (For papers from Pan-Pacific region U.S.A. only) e-mail: JLL@ibm.com e-mail: hkucs!chin@uunet.uu.net The first page of the paper should contain the author's name, affiliation, address, electronic address if available, phone number, 100 word abstract, and key words or phrases. Papers should be no longer than 5000 words (about 20 double-spaced pages). A submission letter that contains a commitment to present the paper at the conference if accepted should accompany the paper. Tutorials The day after the conference will be devoted to tutorials. Proposals for tutorials on Artificial Intelligence topics, especially advanced topics, are welcome. Send proposals by June 15, 1988 to the Program Co-Chairmen. Conference Timetable and Information Papers due: June 15, 1988 Tutorial proposals due: June 15, 1988 Acceptance letters sent: September 1, 1988 Camera-ready copy due: October 1, 1988 International Program Committee: J-P Adam (Paris T.Y. Chen (Melbourne & W.F. Clocksin Scientific Center) HKU) (Cambridge) A. Despain (Berkeley) J. Gallier Qingshi Gao M. Georgeff (SRI) (Pennsylvania) (Academia Sinica) R.C.T. Lee (National D. Hanson (Princeton) R. Hasegawa (ICOT) Tsin Hua) M. Maher (IBM) Z. Manna (Stanford & F. Mizoguchi (Science U. Montanari (Pisa) Weizmann) U. of Tokyo) P.C. Poole (Melbourne) K. Mukai (ICOT) H.N. Phien (AIT) C.K. Yuen (Singapore) D.S.L. Tung (CUHK) Organizing Committee Local Arrangements Publicity Chairman: Chairman: Chairman: Mr. Wanbil Lee Dr. K.W. Ng Dr. K.P. Chow Department of Department of Computer Centre of Computer Computer Studies Science Studies and Applications City Polytechnic of The Chinese University University of Hong Kong Hong Kong of Hong Kong Pokfulam Road Argyle Center Shatin, N.T. Hong Kong Kowloon, Hong Kong Hong Kong e-mail: hkucs!icsc@uunet.uu.net In Cooperation With: Center for Computing Studies and Services, Hong Kong Baptist College Centre of Computer Studies and Applications, University of Hong Kong Department of Computer Science, The Chinese University of Hong Kong Department of Computer Studies, City Polytechnic of Hong Kong Department of Computing Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 7 Dec 87 09:59:52 EST From: ennio@bucasb.bu.edu (Ennio Mingolla) Subject: Conference - Visual Form and Motion Perception ************************************************************************** ***** UPDATED Meeting Announcement: (Please Post) ***** VISUAL FORM AND MOTION PERCEPTION: PSYCHOPHYSICS, COMPUTATION, AND NEURAL NETWORKS Friday and Saturday, March 4 and 5, 1988 Conference Auditorium, George Sherman Union, Boston University 775 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts This meeting has been dedicated to the memory of the late KVETOSLAV PRAZDNY, who was to have been a speaker, and whose tragic death has deprived the field of visual perception of one of its most talented investigators. Confirmed speakers and tentative titles are: S. ANSTIS, York University. (To be announced) L. AREND, Eye Research Institute. Lightness and color in complex scenes I. BIEDERMAN, University of Minnesota. Invariant primitives for visual image understanding P. CAVANAGH, University of Montreal. Motion: The long and the short of it J. DAUGMAN, Harvard University. Image segmentation by networks for signal orthogonalization S. GROSSBERG, Boston University. Filling in the forms: Monocular and binocular constraints on surface lightness perception J. LAPPIN, Vanderbilt University. The optical information for perceiving metric structure from motion E. MINGOLLA, Boston University. Recent results in emergent visual segmentations V. RAMACHANDRAN, UCSD. The utilitarian theory of perception: Interactions between motion, form, color, and texture A. REEVES, Northeastern University. Fundamental mechanisms of color vision W. RICHARDS, MIT. Encoding shape by curvature R. SAVOY, Rowland Institute. Traditional form and motion stimuli presented to isolated cone classes G. SPERLING, New York University. Non-Fourier motion perception J. TODD, Brandeis University. Perception of smoothly curved surfaces S. ZUCKER, McGill University. From orientation selection to optical flow This meeting is sponsored by the Boston Consortium for Behavioral and Neural Studies, a group of researchers supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Life Sciences Program. A Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge is located at 575 Commonwealth Avenue, and a limited number of rooms at a reduced conference rate can be reserved until February 10, 1988 by those attending the meeting. Total conference registration will be limited by available meeting space, so early registration is advised. Registration and hotel accomodations for the meeting are being handled by: UNIGLOBE--Vision Meeting Telephone: 40 Washington Street (800) 521-5144 Wellesley Hills, MA 02181 (617) 235-7500 A meeting registration and hotel reservation form is attached to this announcement. For further information about travel or accomodation arrangements, contact UNIGLOBE at the above address or telephone numbers. [Contact the sender if you need the registration form. -- KIL] ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ******************** >From LAWS@KL.SRI.COM Wed Dec 30 12:09:33 1987 Date: Tue 29 Dec 1987 23:31-PST From: AIList Moderator Kenneth Laws Reply-To: AIList@SRI.COM Us-Mail: SRI Int., 333 Ravenswood Ave., Menlo Park, CA 94025 Phone: (415) 859-6467 Subject: AIList V5 #288 - Dictionaries, STRIPS, Simulation, Law To: AIList@SRI.COM Status: RO AIList Digest Wednesday, 30 Dec 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 288 Today's Topics: Queries - Symbolics Bitmaps & ELIZA & ALVIN & Survey Announcement & Text-to-Voice Convertor & PD Expert System, Linguistics - Online Dictionary, Planning - STRIPS References, Simulation - List Address Change, Law - Can You Sue an Expert System?, Philosophy - The Role of Biological Models in AI ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 18 Dec 12:50:21 1987 From: prem%research.att.com@RELAY.CS.NET Subject: Symbolics Bitmap question. Does someone have a Zetalisp package that will take a symbolics bitmap and dump it (Postscript format) into a unix file ? thanks. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 20 Dec 87 22:52:41 GMT From: Wolf-Dieter Batz Subject: ELIZA ??? Hello ppl on AIlist, I'm in need of help from some of you cracks who have a broader perspective than me, 'cause I did not read this list for several months now. Question: Is there any form of some intelligent interviewing software out on the net? We would apprecciate any source in any language you like. Best would be some Prog combining the features from ELIZA and STORYTELLER. Please send it to my address directly, 'cause I do not read this list (no time, believe me...)! If there's any substantial response, I will post it as a large package to the list next spring, ok? thanxalot *** Wodibatz (L12@DHDURZ1.bitnet) ------------------------------ Date: 20 Dec 87 15:17:02 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Barry_A_Stevens@uunet.uu.net Subject: trying to find ALVIN I'm trying to find the author of ALVIN, a neural-net based system that can be "taught" areas of knowledge. The author was originally distributing through the UCLA PC users group. I would like to either find the author, and/or get a copy of ALVIN. Can anyone help? Reply by email or to Barry Stevens Applied AI Systems PO Box 2747 Del Mar, CA 92014 619-755-7231 -- Thanks in advance for your help. ------------------------------ Date: Tue 22 Dec 87 11:40:35-PST From: ELIOT@ECLA.USC.EDU Subject: Survey Announcement * NOTICE * Request for Survey Participation I am conducting a survey of university faculty doing expert systems research with a business emphasis, and hope to obtain a widespread level of participation (note: I am a faculty member doing this survey as part of my research efforts and in conjunction with another professor, Benn Konsynski who is visiting at Harvard this year and is normally with the University of Arizona). We are particularly interested in business oriented research topics, including the application of expert systems to business domains (e.g., finance, marketing, accounting, and so on) and the management of expert systems projects. A questionnaire is available from me and can be obtained by email or regular mail. To obtain a questionnaire, send a request to: On the arpanet: ELIOT@ECLA.USC.EDU Via regular mail: Dr. Eliot, Director Expert Systems Laboratory Systems Science Department University of Southern California P.O. Box 30041 Long Beach, Ca. 90853-0041 The results of our survey will be summarized and made available in a brief technical report. We anticipate making presentations at selected AI conferences regarding the survey results and have been in contact with several interested AI journals. We hope to distribute the survey and obtain the completed forms back within the month of January. So send for your survey today! Dr. Lance B. Eliot USC ------------------------------ Date: 20 Dec 87 23:50:11 GMT From: ihnp4!islenet!jds@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (James Steppling) Subject: Text-to-Voice Convertor I am in the process of developing an OEM voice menu system requiring a high quality Text-to-Voice Pheripheral Board for a IBM compatible PC. I have tested the board recently displayed a COMDEX and fount it to be just bearly accepatable. If any one has or is working on or is knows of a good non-computer sounding digital or synthisized Text-to-Voice processor please let me know. Thanks Jim ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 87 17:22:47 GMT From: grc!don@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Donald D. Woelz) Subject: PD expert system I am looking for a simple PD expert system that would be used to assist a user in configuring a computer system. I envision that the system will ask the user simple yes or no questions about what he wants to have in the system, and then display the complete configuration when done. If anyone has such software or knows where I might obtain it, please send me email with the information. I am running System V Release 2 and would prefer something that runs in that environment. Thanks. -- Don Woelz {ames, rutgers, harvard}!uwvax!uwmcsd1!grc!don GENROCO, Inc. Phone: 414-644-8700 205 Kettle Moraine Drive North Fax: 414-644-6667 Slinger, WI 53086 Telex: 6717062 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 23:54:40 GMT From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrcae!gollum!rolandi@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (rolandi) Subject: online dictionary needed *************************** WANTED ******************************* I am trying to locate an online dictionary or any large collection of English words in electromic form that includes a pronunciation key. Not to be picky, but the pronunciation key would ideally employ regular ascii characters to represent the word's phonetic qualities. Does a "shareware" version of such a resource exist? Thanks in advance... w.rolandi u.s.carolina dept. of psychology and linguistics ncr advanced development ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 00:47:18 GMT From: glacier!jbn@labrea.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) Subject: Re: online dictionary needed The entire American Heritage Dictionary, definitions and pronunciation as well as the words themselves, is available, along with various other reference works, in CD-ROM format from Microsoft. See your local Microsoft dealer for details. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 87 21:20:14 GMT From: steve@hubcap.clemson.edu ("Steve" Stevenson) Subject: STRIPS references query answered. Some time ago I posted a query for the state of the STRIPS model. Several people took time to reply. Thanks to you all. Here's the references. Happy Holidays!!! ------- Wilkins, D., ``Domain-independent Planning: Representation and Plan Generation", {\it Artificial Intelligence 22}, April 1984, pp. 269-301. Wilkins, D., ``Recovering from Execution Errors in SIPE", {\it Computation Intelligence 1}, February 1985, pp. 33-45. ------- The PRODIGY system here at CMU is a recent derivative of STRIPS. Its mostly used as a testbed for machine learning research by various people (e.g. see my article in IJCAI87), but the problem solver itself has some advances that are interesting. We've just about finished a manual for the system, and will be releasing it for external use within the next month or two. Let me know if you are interested. - Steve Minton ------- A recent paper by David Chapman (AIJ v32 #3 July 87) gives a good overview of planning research. ------- McCarty, (mccarty@red.rutgers.edu), suggested by a student at Rutgers. ------- Steve (really "D. E.") Stevenson steve@hubcap.clemson.edu Department of Computer Science, (803)656-5880.mabell Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634-1906 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 21 Dec 87 11:53:30 EST From: Paul Fishwick Subject: simulation list address change Ken, If you could possible make a change to the addresses in my last message before posting it would be great! The addresses in that mail message are: simulation@fish.cis.ufl.edu simulation-request@fish.cis.ufl.edu and should be changed to: simulation@ufl.edu simulation-request@ufl.edu Thanks a bunch. It turns out that many nameservers have not been changed so that they can access the 'fish' machine so I decided to operate the mailing list from our front end mailer machine. Have you had problems from individuals not being able to get to your 'kl' machine? I suppose that if everyone's name server had the same "intelligence" then we wouldn't have a problem. -paul ------------------------------ Date: 20 Dec 87 15:20:02 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Barry_A_Stevens@uunet.uu.net Subject: re: can you sue an expert system? I have received many replies to my original posting on the legal aspects of using expert systems. Many were useful, a few thought the scenario was trivial and, therefore, so was the discussion. I'll be summarizing the result and posting shortly. Thanks for your help. -- Barry Stevens ------------------------------ Date: 17 Dec 87 13:42:54 GMT From: mcvax!inria!imag!bondono@uunet.uu.net (Philippe Bondono) Subject: Re: Can you sue an expert system? In article <1788@cup.portal.com> Barry_A_Stevens@cup.portal.com writes: > >Consider, and please comment on, this scenario. > > * * * * * * * * * * * > >A well-respected, well-established expert systems(ES) company constructs >an expert financial advisory system. The firm employs the top ES >applications specialists in the country. The system is constructed with >help from the top domain experts in the financial services industry. It >is exhaustively tested, including verification of rules, verification of >reasoning, and further analyses to establish the system's overall value. >All results are excellent, and the system is offered for sale. No comment on this point: I am very trustful in expert systems (I must be so, in fact, since I am working in that field), nevertheless, I think that the two most important features of expert systems are: 1) their capacity to verify the consistency of their database(s), and 2) the domain they are concerned with. >By now, you know the outcome. On the Friday morning before Black Monday, >the expert system tells Joe to "sell everything he has and go into the >stock market." ESs can usually explain their actions, and Joe asks for >an explanation. The ES replies "because ... it's only been going UP for >the past five years and there are NO PROBLEMS IN SIGHT." The expert system was right: it made a deduction from the knowledge it was fed on with! But the real problem is the domain of expertise, more precisely the suitability of an expert system in a particular field. It seems to me quite unreasonable to build an expert system for financial advice, since this field is continuously in evolution. Moreover, for the particular problem of stock market, it is neither a question of months, nor of days: it is a question of hours! Everybody knows that stock market is particularly precarious, since it can easily go up or down, depending on "abstract" parameters, such as feelings, or interpretations of official people's declarations (remember the effect of Reagan's declarations!), or even the fact that one is tense! This kind of knowledge cannot be modeled, at least till now, in an expert system database. This was to say that the problem is not whether or not to start a discussion on qualities/drawbacks of expert systems, but rather on what kind of field is suitable for building expert systems. ______________________________________________________________________________ Meryem MARZOUKI Laboratoire TIM3/IMAG INPG - 46 avenue Felix VIALLET 38031 Grenoble Cedex - FRANCE e-mail marzouki@archi.uucp "my tailor is rich, but my english is poor!" ______________________________________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 87 12:42:48 GMT From: mcvax!varol@uunet.uu.net (Varol Akman) Subject: Re: Can you sue an expert system? Meryem Marzouki writes: > > ... material deleted > >No comment on this point: I am very trustful in expert systems (I must be so, >in fact, since I am working in that field), nevertheless, I think that the two >most important features of expert systems are: >1) their capacity to verify the consistency of their database(s), and >2) the domain they are concerned with. > > ... material deleted > >The expert system was right: it made a deduction from the knowledge it was fed >on with! >But the real problem is the domain of expertise, more precisely the >suitability >of an expert system in a particular field. >It seems to me quite unreasonable to build an expert system for financial >advice, since this field is continuously in evolution. Moreover, for the >particular problem of stock market, it is neither a question of months, nor of >days: it is a question of hours! >Everybody knows that stock market is particularly precarious, since it can >easily go up or down, depending on "abstract" parameters, such as feelings, or >interpretations of official people's declarations (remember the effect of >Reagan's declarations!), or even the fact that one is tense! >This kind of knowledge cannot be modeled, at least till now, in an expert system >database. >This was to say that the problem is not whether or not to start a discussion on >qualities/drawbacks of expert systems, but rather on what kind of field is >suitable for building expert systems. Expert systems, at this stage of their evolution, are tools for modeling surface knowledge in an area. They have no ability whatsoever to reason about the underlying mechanisms of the domain that they try to model. Thus they lack deep knowledge. Human beings have deep knowledge. There is also a lot of high quality work in the area of modeling deep knowledge but this is very much experimental. In fact, if we're successful (to an extent) in modeling deep knowledge, then AI will prove that it is a discipline which can deal with realistic (read non-toy) problems. Until then, expert systems will serve as advisors whose advice need close scrutiny (sp?) by human experts. I would never try to sue an expert system because I KNOW that it can't be trusted, given their level of sophistication at this time. I can't trust something if it is the subject matter of my field of research because my field of research is very much in its infancy. To me that kind of trust is probably the worst thing that I may have. Programs should be trusted not because we feel a parental warm affinity towards them. They should be trusted if they are worth our trust. The road to that trust is not a path of roses; it is a path full of hard work, correctness proofs, wide and general field tests, etc. Until then let's just work and hope that everythings turns out to be allright at the end. -Varol Akman CWI, Amsterdam ------------------------------ Date: 18 Dec 87 01:15:16 GMT From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!msellers@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Sellers) Subject: Re: the role of biological models in ai >In article <23@gollum.Columbia.NCR.COM> rolandi@gollum.UUCP () writes: >> >> According to some AI theorists, (see Schank, >>R.C., (1984) The Cognitive Computer. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley) >>AI is "an investigation into human understanding through which we learn >>...about the complexities of our own intelligence." Thus, at least for >>some AI researchers, the automation of intelligent behavior is secondary >>to the expansion and formalization of our self-understanding. >From what I've seen of AI research, this may not be true (in most cases). I think most AI researchers are not so concerned with self-understanding as they are with creating a program that interacts with humans in a seemingly intelligent way. It makes no difference if the methods or structures used bear any resemblance to the human way of doing things. I believe the problem for most active researchers is one of scale: you cannot possibly hope to create a program that models human cognitive processing, and you have to get *something* running, so you set your sights a little lower and brush aside questions of how well the program corresponds to humans. This is not meant to sound demeaning or even cynical, just realistic. >>This is >>assumed to be the result of creating computational "accounts" of (typically >>intellectual) behavior. Researchers write programs which display the >>performance characteristics of humans within some given domain. The >>efficacy of a program is a function of the similarity of its performance >>to the human performance after which it was modeled. Thus AI programs are >>(often) created in order to "explain" the processes that they model. The last three statements are, I believe, rarely (if ever, in "classical" AI research) true. In the vast majority of cases, we do not even know what the "performance characteristics of humans" are! For a task of any real complexity, modeling a human's performance (when it can be measured) is still a matter of theory and conjecture rather than programming (see the scale problem I mentioned above). For example, even for all their hype and worth, knowledge-based (expert) systems do not even begin to approximate the actions of a human expert. The most advanced projects in this area have some explanatory capabilities, and some skill at incorporating new or conflicting facts in their decision making process, but this is just scratching the surface of how human experts operate. Lastly, current AI programs are like the stork-story of human birth as far as explaining human behavior or cognitive processing goes; they may provide something that we can learn from later on, but they do not really get us any closer to knowing what is really going on. In article <2590@gryphon.CTS.COM>, sarima@gryphon.CTS.COM (Stan Friesen) writes: >My problem with this class of AI research is that I question it >validity/usefulness. Why should there be only *one* algorithm for a >particular 'behavior'? What evidence do we have that the algorithms that >we are writing into our programs are in fact related in any way th the >ones used by the human brain? Mere parallel behavior is NOT sufficient >evidence to claim increased understanding of a human behavior, some >evidence from neurology and psychology is necessary to at least >demonstrate applicibility. In particular, I find most current AI >algorithms to be far too analytical to be realistic models of human, >or even animal, cognition. Most AI algorithms have little if any resemblance to how humans function. How important this fact is depends on who you talk to. Of those people doing research in PDP (parallel distributed processing, or artificial neural networks, or connectionist nets, etc), many are convinced that some correspondence with the functioning of the human brain is important (possibly vital). This is not to say that this way of operating is the "only way". It is, however, the only way that we know of. Later, when we have all the principles behind cognition down pat, we can begin to branch out in different directions. Interestingly, many of the people doing this research are psychologists and neurologists, so there is (hopefully) an increasing amount of knowledge and techniques from these fields being used in this research. For the time being, however, the level of cognition we will be seeing arising from PDP research will be more reminisicent of a flatworm or a sea slug than a dog or a human (I predict, however, that this is more than we will see from more "classical" AI methods, which will continue to be more concerned with outward function than with inward correspondence). -- Mike Sellers ...!tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!msellers Mentor Graphics Corp. Electronic Packaging and Analysis Division ------------------------------ End of AIList Digest ********************